Archery on Target in London

(ATR) World Archery secretary general Tom Dielen tells Around the Rings that London has been "fantastic" for the sport, whether at the Olympics or Paralympics.

The eight-day archery competition during the Olympics was held at Lord’s, the iconic cricket ground in central London. There were four events with 128 archers shooting for gold.

The Paralympics archery was held in southeast London, at the Royal Artillery Barracks, sharing the venue with shooting. The competition included 140 archers competing in nine events, with classifications for wheelchair and standing athletes.

Around the Rings: What's your assessment about how this has been put together for you for these Olympic Games here in Lord’s?

TD: Well, we are very pleased with how it's working out. We have a very good cooperation with the owner of Lord’s and with local council.

And now we're shooting from this historic house, so we're showing our sport from heritage to future.

ATR: Was it hard to make archery work at Lord’s?

TD: No, originally when they were in the bid phase, Lord’s wanted to do a sport, so they looked across all the sports and said, 'ok, what sport fits best with us?'

It wouldn't have worked to do beach volleyball here, for instance. And so the other thing you could say perhaps the size is OK for equestrian but the groundsmen would definitely not have accepted that.

So I think it was a good match and we could set it up in here without causing too much damage to the field.

ATR: You have an iconic venue in 2016 for Rio de Janiero, too?

TD: In Rio it will be different. The Sambadromo is really…it's Brazil, it's Carnival, so it also has something. Britain has a certain heritage and you want to show it; Rio, it's Carnival, samba and we'll be able to show it at the Sambadromo.

ATR: As far as the competition goes, anything different substantially in London over Beijing?

TD: Well, the big difference is in the individual event. We're shooting a set play where we had cumulative scoring in Beijing so now it's best of five sets instead of just adding the scores until the end.

In the team it's still that way, we will evaluate after these Games if we go for teams as well for sets.

ATR: Compare archery today from what it was 10 years ago. Big difference?

TD: Absolutely. I think there are differences in many aspects in the way we show our sports, in the level of performance. When we created the World Cup in 2006, we did it for marketing reasons, for promotional reasons and to make our sport more visible but we hadn't expected that it's created such an improvement of the level of our sport.

If you look at the scores here and you compare them with what we had in Beijing, it's day and night. A score that would put you in the top 20 in Beijing now will put you in the top 50 – if you're lucky.

ATR: The team competition is an exciting event to watch now too.

TD: Absolutely, yes. And we are working for the future as well. We have a mixed-team competition which we started in Singapore. It's a permanent discipline in our world championships and that is definitely also one that we want to push for the future.

ATR: For the Paralympics you have changed venues from Lord’s to the Royal Artillery Barracks south of the Olympic Park. You share the venue with shooting. What has the change meant?

TD: Well, it’s clear that it’s a different set-up. It’s not what I would call an iconic venue, it’s a really temporary, made-for venue.

It had some challenges at the beginning to get it set up but I think the athletes are happy with it. It’s for sure accessible, which I think is the most important thing for a Paralympic event.

The program is also a little bit different: Whereas in the Olympics we have a medal on day one, so you immediately get into it.

At the Paralympics it’s been qualifying eliminations the first day and then finals going on for the next three days. So it’s a little bit different in the way the build-up is working,

We just had a meeting with IPC CEO Xavier Gonzales to see how we can change the program in Rio, the schedule, that start with medals on the first days as well to have the same atmosphere as during the Olympics.

ATR: Other challenges with the Paralympic venue?

TD: Well, one of the issues is that since we have a joint venue, shooting and archery, what tended to happen was in the morning people would go shooting but then stop shooting, they come here then they go back, so it’s difficult to have a packed venue the whole day.

The other challenge we have with Paralympics is what we had in the Olympics in the past, we have two matches at the same time for the eliminations.

If you have two matches, it’s difficult for the public to interact with the athletes because they’re afraid to "de-concentrate" on the ones that are still shooting. One shoots and then they want to applaud but they are afraid that they will disturb the one that is still shooting his match.

ATR: What kind of response have you been getting from spectators?

TD: Well, they really are impressed, I would say, by the ability, let’s not talk about disability for a change, the ability of the athletes. They have a guy from the US, he doesn’t have arms and he’s shooting tens all the time. It’s amazing. He’s shooting with his foot and his mouth, basically, and he’s putting them in the middle. He’s shooting the semi-finals later on today. It’s fantastic.

ATR: How does the experience of London 2012 fit in with the overall plan, the World Archery Federation plan?

TD:We've been working the last four years to make talent in an international level, our sport more visible, more important.

We've made important steps forward. We changed our name, we've changed our logo, we've changed the branding.

Now for the next four years we want to do the same thing but at the national level. So basically to help our national federations to reach the same level in the future.

If we keep on growing and our national federations do not catch up, there is going to be more of a gap and that is something we want to avoid.

So our vision for 2012 was make archery on an international level an important sport. We don't want to be the biggest but we want to be seen as an important sport. So this is the challenge for the next four years.

ATR:Do you need sponsor support?

TD: Sponsors, of course, is a must but in the next step although sponsors are important I would say the most important thing is improving the quality of people involved in the sport.

We can make big plans we can support money-wise but if you don't have the people to do it in the countries, then ok, it’s not going to work.

So we started to do management seminars, we started to do event seminars to really improve the people working in the federations.

ATR: What parts of the world do you see the most fertile ground?

TD: I was at the African qualifier at March of this year, and we are really impressed with how Africa is evolving. At the Youth Olympic Games there was an African gold medalist. That shows they are on the right way, so we will keep on going and supporting Africa a lot.

We have South America, especially with Rio. We will make a really big step forward.

Asia is continuing to grow and I would say the dominance that was from China and Korea, the others are catching up, Oceania is a little bit difficult, with the distances between the islands and the size of the islands, but we keep pushing it there and try to keep it going.

I think we can make a lot of progress, but we don't want our federation to have 200 national federations. We want to have…at the moment we have 149, but we want those 149 to really exist and not just be a postal box. If they are just a postal box we kick them out.

ATR: Is that still an issue?

TD: I would say out of the 149 that we have 110 that try to qualify for here, really try. In Beijing I would say we were around 85-90, so we see that there is more national activity, more and more national championships, more and more national investment in the sport.

ATR: The image of archery around the world has gotten a boost from movies and people are paying attention not necessarily as an Olympic sport but is it drawing more people?

TD: It's drawing more people. The challenge with all these things is how you keep them. There is always first interest but if they go to a club and there is not enough space then it’s difficult to keep them.

For sure it has created a buzz, "The Hunger Games" the "Brave" movie, "The Avengers" and Hollywood adores us at the moment which is good.

ATR: Finally – your return to London for the Paralympics also included a visit to Lord’s?

TD: Yes. We were there because we decided to offer a bow, a complete bow with an arrow to the museum because they want to have in the museum a small exhibition for the sport, to show that archery was at Lord’s.

They don’t want to forget it because they really enjoyed it as well. They’re also talking about a wall of honor somewhere with the names of the Olympic champions.

ATR: So archery will always be at Lord’s?

TD: Exactly.

Written and reported in London by Ed Hula.